New collections added to Stanford Digital Repository in December 2013

In December, approximately 366,000, files representing over 43,000 items were accessioned into the Stanford Digital Repository (SDR). These materials include -- but are not limited to -- items from the Jarnydce Collection, TRAIL Maps Project, and the Revs Digital Library.

The Circle of the Sun Exhibition

This month, manuscripts from the second part of a two-part exhibition of Stanford's medieval manuscripts were added to SDR. From antiquity, scholars divided knowledge into res divinae and res humane. By focusing on the exercise of reading, the first half of this two-part exhibition, Scripting the Sacred (2012), explored "scripting" in diverse forms: scribal activity, scripted performances, and inscribed divine things (res divinae). The second half of the exhibition, The Circle of the Sun (2014) focuses on res humanae, which are more often found in nondescript “text manuscripts” as they are called by scholars, librarians, booksellers and collectors. Yet, as Professor William Calin said at Stanford in 1972, “The secular Middle Ages, in literature, art, music, and life, is a vital, beautiful thing and is real.” Today, manuscript studies is an emerging and growing field – highly interdisciplinary and increasingly technical – for which paleography, the study of old writing, remains a fundamental tool. The task of managing knowledge goes on, now digitally, here at the Stanford University Libraries, as does the collecting and studying of primary sources. Curators hope that their engagement in these timelessly and quintessentially human activities will enable them to present the paleography collections in new perspectives.Example: http://purl.stanford.edu/dv924vb2099Added to SDR this month: 31 manuscriptsCollection Contact: David Jordan

Jarndyce

The nineteenth-century novel is one of the key areas of research and teaching for the English Department at Stanford, with many faculty and graduate students concentrating on this genre and time period. The Study for the Center of the Novel, which generates much dynamic discussion and scholarship on the form, came about due to the intense engagement with this seminal form at Stanford. The single-volume novel, of the type represented in this collection from Jarndyce, was a precursor to the form of the twentieth-century novel and novella.Example: http://purl.stanford.edu/qn221yf2302Added to SDR this month: 10 novels comprising approximately 10,500 images Collection Contact: Glen Worthey

Maps - Stanford General Collections

These are maps from Stanford's general maps collections held at the Branner Earth Sciences Library, which includes approximately 300,000 sheets. The DLSS Map Digitization Lab regularly scans maps from the general collection to facilitate research and scholarly access.Example: http://purl.stanford.edu/mv855th5331Added to SDR this month: 5 maps Collection Contact: Jane Ingalls and G. Salim Mohammed

TRAIL Maps Project

This collection is part of the larger Technical report archive and image library (TRAIL) project to which Stanford Libraries belong (see: http://technicalreports.org). The collection consists of USGS maps published as part of the technical report series published by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Office of Biological Services. Examples include the Florida Ecological Atlas, Ecological Atlas of Coastal Alabama, and Pacific Coast Ecological Inventory. The maps digitized this month were part of the continuing effort to digitize the maps included in the project.Example: http://purl.stanford.edu/bk784bd8639Added to SDR this month: 3 maps Collection Contact: Jane Ingalls and James Jacob

Revs Digital Library

In December the Revs Digital Library made further progress in it's ongoing efforts to ensure access and preservation of materials from the Revs Institute and the Revs Program at Stanford. The Institute, which is focused on the scholarly study of the automotive history, houses a library with over a million automobile-related items, including images, research books, ephemera, and specialized documents. The Revs Program at Stanford was established to promote a new trans-disciplinary field connecting the past, present and future of the automobile. More information is at the Revs Digital Library website, which is currently in beta and available to all members of the Stanford community. The items added in the month of December are a continuation of the digitization efforts for this collection.Example: http://purl.stanford.edu/bb705rf2074Added to SDR this month: 29,000 photos Collection Contact: Scott George

State Legislative Rules

Any analysis of a law making body, be it Congress, a state legislature, or city council, requires one to have access to the body’s rules of procedure. The rules are the guide to how laws are created (or not). Researching legislative intent, knowing why a bill did or did not pass, is a very standard research question. The goal of this project is twofold; support research at Stanford University and make core legislative materials from Stanford's collection accessible online. These rules were scanned from the State Legislative Journals, Manuals, and Handbooks thus making it easier to conduct text mining and other research on this particular legislative publication type.Example: http://purl.stanford.edu/yc598jh9704Added to SDR this month: 1 Object, consisting of approximately 360 images Collection Contact: Kris Kasianovitz

Inclusion in the Stanford Digital Repository ensures that these materials are available to researchers and scholars (while upholding appropriate access restrictions), now and in the future through a secure, sustainable stewardship environment. While many of these objects are already discoverable via SearchWorks others will get SearchWorks records in the coming months. All materials are currently available via the item’s PURL (a persistent URL which ensure that these materials are available from a single URL over the long-term, regardless of changes in file location or application technology).